Chihuahua seeks ban on video game

JUAREZ, Mexico - A shoot-em-up video game set in the border town of Juarez has angered local officials who are fighting all-too-real violence.

Chihuahua state legislators said Sunday that they have asked federal authorities to ban "Call of Juarez: The Cartel," which is based on drug-cartel shootouts in Juarez.

About 6,000 people died in drug-related violence in Juarez in 2009 and 2010, making the city, located across from El Paso, one of the deadliest in the world.

The website of game developer Ubisoft Entertainment SA says the title is due for release this summer.

Screen shots from the game show three characters armed with a pistol, an assault rifle and a shotgun ready to open fire on a city street.

The game's promotional slogan urges players, "Take justice into your own hands and experience the lawlessness of the modern Wild West."

No one answered a message left at the company's San Francisco office.

Ricardo Boone Salmon, a congressman for Chihuahua state, where Juarez is located, said the state legislature unanimously approved a request asking the federal Interior Department to ban the game.

"It is true there is a serious crime situation, which we are not trying to hide," Boone Salmon said. "But we also should not expose children to (these) kind of scenarios so that they are going to grow up with this kind of image and lack of values."

State congress leader Enrique Serrano said the main concern is the potential effect on children in Juarez, some of whom have already been taught to "duck and cover" if firefights erupt outside their schools.

"Children wind up being easily involved in criminal acts over time, because among other things, during their childhood not enough care has been taken about what they see on television and playing video games," Serrano said. "They believe so much blood and death is normal."